Gah. I got in a mood and posted a big long ass essay in GDP about the Founding Fathers

[Bucky]

Of course it's dropping like a rock. I spend too damn much time thinking.

GDP fuckers.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I read it. I thought it was great.

I guess I should comment whenever I read something really good so the author knows he's appreciated. For whatever my opinion is worth, anyhow.

[Bucky]

2. No, you should comment to kick that fucker so that those idiots in GDP...

will quit posting their malarkey about "Hitlery Klinton" and "Barack Osellout" or whatever else juvenile patter they're smearing on the web right now.

GDP doesn't need a moderator, it needs a baby sitter.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Done.

Recommended, too. Nice job.

[DarkTirade]

9. Hitlery Clinton... I gotta remember that one.

I don't like her all that much myself... but has anybody ever heard of Godwin's Law? :)

[Bunny]

3. K & R'ed Bucky!

Nice work.

[Lyric]

5. Which Founding Fathers are you speaking of?

I know you can't be talking about James Madison, the father of the Constitution, who argued in the Federalist #10 that the larger a society is, the easier it is to keep "factions" from ripping the nation apart, and that the larger a society is, the better our representatives will be because they will be the "best and brightest" from a much larger group of people. Choosing the best apple out of a basket of 15 might not leave you with a very good apple at all, but the best out of a wagon full is likely to be pretty damned good.

Which Founding Father believed what you said? (i.e., that the larger a nation gets, the less free it becomes) I'm genuinely interested, because I've never heard such a thing.

Edited to add the link to the Wiki article about Federalist #10:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._10

[Bucky]

8. Actually, yes, Madison's view of the "best & brightest" meant the wealthiest.

I get my conclusions from actually reading Madison's speeches at the 1787 Philly convention and the 1788 Virginia state ratification convention.

Madison was terribly concerned about the possibility that in the future too many people would get the vote and engage in the "leveling tendencies" of the Shaysites. Part of the structure of the Senate and Electoral College was to insulate the federal government from the "democracy". He spoke about this in both in Philadelphia and at the Richmond ratifying convention. The concern expressed by several people in Madison's nationalist faction (later called Federalists) such as Wilson, Hamilton, and G.Morris, was that a demogogue would stir up the passions of the people (and he felt cities were more prone to this than rural districts because they had less landholders per capita).

To them, this was how a tyrant could take over a country. The example the Founders cited most was a comparison of Cincinnatus vs a Caesar (or a Cromwell).

The Federalist Papers were written to help sell the Constitution to reluctant New Yorkers. If you want his real thoughts, you have to look at his convention speeches and private correspondence. Which is not to say the Federalist Papers are propaganda, just that they're written for a particular market.

Part of the point in creating large districts was to render not just the best and the brightest, but also to put the most successful & most famous candidates in office. They were looking for "first characters" or people with top reputations. But for a Virginian in that day, that meant someone who was wealthy and established in society. The other effect of having large districts was to have the Congress itself not be too big. The best quote to this effect is Hamilton's "A thousand Socrates is still a mob."

But it was a common concern in his day that larger societies can become undemocratic. Not just the Antifederalists argued this. It's true that Madisonian democracy meant building a multiplicity of factions so that in the aggregate a stable majority could rule. But he too had concerns that too large a nation, or too large an electorate, could at some point be fooled by a demagogue. He expressed it more as the tendency to allow too many people to vote more than the Antis did. But I recall a couple of statements to that effect in Madison's transcript of the debates and they struck me because they did stand out as being not what the conventional interpretation of Madisonian democracy says he believed. But it's hard not to credit the man's own notes with some insight.

[Bucky]

10. Footnote: Madison might be oversold as "Father of the Constitution"

Roger Sherman's midwifing the Connecticut Compromise and putting together the Connecticut-South Carolina Axis in the later convention that cured the Constitution of the Virginia Plan's excesses (as well as weighing it down with some obnoxious pro-slavery clauses) deserves as much credit.

[madrchsod]

6. i know how you feel about posting something

that took a long time to write and no one reads it...ya i read it and recommend

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. My dear Bucky!

Well, sweetie....It's not dropping like a rock any more!

I just K&R'd you...

Beautifully written....

Thank you for writing it...

:hug:

[Mojambo]

11. You should have just posted this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0hvm10AHo